A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security and US Public Schools

FEATURING NICOLE NGUYEN – Since September 11th, 2001, the idea of the US as “the homeland” has changed the way we think about this country compared to the rest of the world. The Department of Homeland Security, established in the wake of the terrorist attacks, have now become a part of society we take for granted.

But astonishingly, DHS has also begun to creep into the educational curricula of US public schools. Writing about how one school in particular has become infected with the language and ideology of “Homeland Security,” is my guest Nicole Nguyen. In her new book, A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security and US Public Schools, she asks, “What investments and social structures made [a] discussion about terrorism and national security in a U.S. public high school not only possible but frighteningly normalized?”

The high school in question is a DC-area facility located next to a military base that she names Milton High School. Today there are more than a dozen US high schools nationwide that have formalized programs focusing on Homeland Security.

*This segment was originally broadcast on August 24, 2016.

Nicole Nguyen, Assistant Professor of social foundations of education at University of Illinois, Chicago, author of A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security and US Public Schools.